


All in the Game, yo

by sonofabiscuit77



Series: All in the Game, yo [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Organized Crime, Sibling Incest, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:25:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofabiscuit77/pseuds/sonofabiscuit77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPN AU, <i>Dad was shot and killed by a police officer when Sam was five...</i>  Sam and Dean grow up in care on Baltimore’s Westside where drug-dealers and drug-pushers rule the streets, where kids face the reality of playing the Game or becoming a junkie, where two white boys have nothing to rely on except each other and their own smarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a gift for [](http://annabeth.livejournal.com/profile)[**annabeth**](http://annabeth.livejournal.com/) for the [](http://spn-j2-xmas.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://spn-j2-xmas.livejournal.com/)**spn_j2_xmas** gift exchange who gave me some great prompts such as _underage, first-time, incest!kink, co-dependency and generally fucked!up boys; growly manhandly!Sam, OTPness for Sam/Dean..._ and I just ran with all of them, and also my own private pondering: What would SamnDean be like if they grew up in _The Wire_? Although, I’ve stolen the setting and the title for this fic from HBO's _The Wire_ , all the OC’s are my original creations and you don’t need to be familiar with that show at all, just need to know that you’re pretty much fucked if you live on the Westside of Baltimore.
> 
> Finally! I have to thank my fabulous beta [](http://andreth47.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://andreth47.livejournal.com/)**andreth47** for her seriously invaluable help!

_July, 17, 2009_

Detective Alexandra Fisk stood beside her partner, Detective Lance Faulkner, watching the ground breaking ceremony for the new Franklin Terrace Towers development.

The old Franklin Terrace Towers had been blown to the ground weeks earlier; debris and dust had hung in the air around the ruined blocks of the Westside for over a week, until the bulldozers and clean-up crews moved in, layering the ground and preparing it for this ceremony.

Mayor Rawlins posed on a makeshift podium, shovel in one hand as he spoke into the mike, easy words like regeneration, renewal, reform, social inclusion, social mobility and regeneration again (that was a favorite) falling from his lips like election promises. To one side was his wife, dressed like a first lady in her trouser suit and matching handbag, and on his other side, the reason Alexandra was there: Sam and Dean Winchester.

The Mayor rounded off his speech:

 _“And now, I’d like to call on the people who have made this possible, the company we have to thank for this new step towards change, towards the rebuilding and regeneration of Baltimore’s Westside; the founders of Winchester Enterprises, Sam and Dean Winchester. Sam, would you come up here please, say a few words to the good people of Baltimore?”_ He turned back to the crowd, _“Sam Winchester, people, the CEO of Winchester Enterprises.”_

Alexandra felt her lip curl as she watched Sam Winchester step away from his brother, nods and handshakes and back claps for the Mayor, kisses for his wife, and beaming politician smiles for the rows of press at the front as he took the podium.

 _“My brother, Dean and I were raised here on the Westside. We spent our childhood in this neighborhood. This place – this neighborhood is a part of our lives, and we want to give back. This new development, and in particular, the rebuilding of the Riverside Court Children’s Home – the place we spent so many important years - is just the first step towards our goal: to rebuild and regenerate this part of the great city of Baltimore. We want to make this city what we think it’s capable of becoming; we want to give kids like us the kind of start in life that they deserve. As part of this, part of our commitment to change, we are delighted to be here, at what we hope is the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Winchester Enterprises and the City, at the start of what looks to be a truly groundbreaking -”_ (at this an eyebrow raise and a chorus of delighted groans) “- _venture for all concerned…”_

“Man, I could just eat him up with a spoon,” a girl on Alexandra’s left commented to her friend. “Every fuckin’ inch of him, mmm-mmm.”

“Shit, yeah. Hell, if he ran for office, I might even vote,” her friend added.

The other girl cackled loudly and hip-checked her friend.

Alexandra rolled her eyes, and tuned back in to Sam’s speech. He had finished up, to more cat-calls and whistles than real applause, and was acknowledging it all with an enormous smile that was all dimpled insincerity and teeth whitener.

“You know, we ain’t never gonna get them,” Lance said conversationally.

She glanced at her partner, “Why the fuck not? Everyone slips up some time.”

“Naw, girl, not them, not the Winchesters. They’re too fuckin’ smart, anyway, what we got on them? Conjecture? Suppositions? Fuckin’ Westside gossip? Shit that ain’t gonna stand up in court, and you know it.”

“I know that they killed Stephen Hopkins, every motherfucker in this city knows that,” she replied.

He shrugged, “So? Who’s gonna give a shit about Little Stevie? That motherfucker was askin’ for it, crime bosses, dudes like him; someone always gets them in the end. Anyway, that shit was five fuckin’ years ago, since then they’ve been clean, nothin’.” He turned, gave her a look, shaking his head as he drew on his cigarette, “What I’m askin’ myself is why you even botherin’? What’s your beef with the Winchesters? They’ve been clean for years. You gotta give this up, catch some real criminals.”

“Hell, they are the real criminals, Lance. They’ve just gotten themselves too fucking high and too fucking mighty that you can’t see it no more. Just cause they’re BFF with the goddamn mayor, bankrolling freaking projects for the city don’t mean they aren’t up to their eyeballs in shit!”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, “but where’s your evidence? You ain’t got none.”

“Yeah,” she agreed with a sigh.

She watched Sam step off the podium and move back to stand beside his brother, bending his head to whisper something into Dean’s ear, provoking a small smile on Dean’s face. Dean Winchester was more of an enigma than Sam; Sam was the public face, the company CEO, but Dean… Dean had been Little Stevie’s pet enforcer for years before the fat guy had ended up floating in the Patapsco. Still, there was nothing linking them to it, just bitchy Westside gossip and their truly dazzling ascension to the top of the City’s echelons: to what they were now – property and investment millionaires with designer suits, healthy tans and about half the City’s administration in their pockets.

Some whoops and catcalls worthy of a strip club dragged her attention back to the podium and she watched in wry amusement as both Dean and Sam stripped off their designer jackets, handing them over to their shades-wearing aides, rolling the pristine cuffs of their perfect white shirts up some impressively ripped forearms. Dean glanced up and raised a hand with a smirk, acknowledging the attention while Sam rolled his eyes and placed a huge hand on Dean’s shoulder as they took their shovels. She had to admit, that alleged murderous and criminal tendencies aside, both Winchester brothers were extremely easy on the eyes, almost preternaturally so, of course the designer suits, perfectly tailored pants and dazzlingly white dress shirts certainly helped, but they both had the kind of looks that were more fitted to the pages of GQ than the Westside, putting the short, balding Mayor next to them in a photo shoot was just plain cruel. She watched them pose with the Mayor and his wife with shovels in hand, more whoops and catcalls greeting them when they finally broke ground.

The crowd began to ebb away, the Mayor immediately being surrounded by press eager to question him about the school budget cuts that had just been announced the day before. Alexandra turned her attention back to the Winchesters: they were making a more stealthy get away than their City’s great leader, hooking their jackets over their shoulders, sliding on their shades, shoulders grazing as they made their way towards their driver, Sam’s hand lingering over the small of Dean’s back, slightly too close for what was normal. She felt the breath catch in her throat and exchanged a look with Lance, who was regarding her with sardonic amusement.

“Course if you really, really wanna get them. There’s always one thing that’d stick,” he said, as they turned to head back to the patrol car.

She glanced up at him, a matching ironic smile across her lips, “Incest?”

“Yup.”

“You’re wrong. That shit would never stick,” she sighed. “Hell, I can’t see the DA’s ever going for that. You're never gonna get the kind of evidence needed. And they’re consenting adults. High profile consenting adults.”

“Well, we ain’t never gonna get nothing better,” he replied as they slid into the patrol car. “They’re too fuckin’ clever, girl, but the incest – that’s the only thing they don’t hide. Everyone around them says it.”

She shook her head, blowing out a long breath, “Jesus. Let’s just go. You’re right; we need to catch some real criminals.”

 

 

 

**********************

 

 

_Twenty-one years earlier…_

 

Dad was shot and killed by a police officer when Sam was five.

He bled out in the ambulance on the way to the ER, or that’s what the police officer told him and Dean.

The paramedic who’d been with Dad when he died came to visit them at Riverside Court, it was the sort of place that adults in charge called “a facility”, but really, Sam knew it was just a fancy name for an orphanage, full of kids with no parents or with parents in jail, or with parents who were “junkies”, at least, that was what Dean said.

The paramedic sat on the edge of the bed opposite Sam and Dean in their dorm room. He said his name was Jim and that he had two boys just like them. He was holding a photograph in his hands and kept smoothing his fingers over it and saying, “Your dad wanted you to have this; his last words were about his boys. He kept telling me to give you this.”

Sam stared at the photo as the man handed it to Dean; he recognized it as the one Dad kept in his wallet, in the front pocket. It was of the three of them on that day they’d gone fishing, some nice man had been passing and offered to take a picture, so they’d sat on the hood of the car, Sam in Dad’s lap and Dean leaning against them, while the man took the picture. The photo had smears of red around the edges. Blood, Sam knew that, it was the same as what Dad sometimes got on his clothes when he got back late from work.

But Dad was dead, he was really and truly gone, he was never coming back and Sam didn’t know what to think about that, wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. When he looked up at Dean, Dean was nodding blankly at the man, his eyes wet and pink. Sam buried his face in Dean’s chest, felt Dean’s arm go around him and pull him close. He only realized that he’d been crying when he pulled back from Dean and saw that Dean’s tee-shirt was soaked through, soppy and sticky with his tears and snot.

Riverside Court was supposed to be temporary, but they ended up staying there a lot longer, though their social worker, Miss Jeanette, was always hopeful, promising them every time she visited that they’d be moved soon.

“Not much longer, boys, I think I can free up a couple of places for you with Mrs. Daly. She has a lovely home and she loves taking in boys like you, she’s such a wonderful woman. You’ll like it there.”

Miss Jeanette had a kind face and a soft voice and told them she was new to the job, but with the Lord’s help she would find a permanent home for them – a couple who could adopt them and love and cherish them.

“We don’t care,” Dean told her. “S’long as we’re together. You ain’t gonna split us up.”

He gave her a fierce look and she smiled again, said that it wasn’t the City of Baltimore’s policy to split up siblings, that they were strongly against such practices. But Sam wasn’t listening to her; he was staring up at Dean, thinking that when he grew up he wanted to be just like his big brother.

 

 

**************************

 

Their first real foster home was run by a couple who already had four other foster kids. They were called James and Margaret and they insisted on being called Mr. James and Mrs. Margaret. They had three bedrooms, two children to a bedroom. It was The System.

Mrs. Margaret spent a long time telling them about The System as she showed them around. She was tall, with long, black hair that reminded Sam of the pictures of witches in the books Dad had left behind.

According to The System, the girls – Denise and Valerie - had one room to themselves because they were girls. “The older boys,” she announced, turning her sharp eyes on Dean, “Dean, that will be you and Cedric, have a room to yourselves. And the younger boys – that’s means you, Sam, and Aaron, have this room.” She pushed open the door to a small room with yellow-painted walls and a couple of old looking cots. Another boy of about Sam’s age was lying on one of the beds with a book; he looked up at them and blinked; he had strange, pink eyes, the blondest hair Sam had ever seen and skin that looked like you could see through it.

“You can put your clothes in that closet, Sam,” Mrs. Margaret kept saying, pointing to a white painted closet, “Aaron has made room for your things.”

Sam wasn’t listening to her; he was staring at Aaron who was staring back at Sam with those strange pinky eyes of his. Sam felt his skin start to prickle and he edged closer to Dean, fisting his fingers into Dean’s plaid shirt.

Dean glanced down at him, pressed his lips together, then looked up again.

“No, this ain’t gonna happen,” he said firmly.

Mrs. Margaret, interrupted in the middle of explaining the rules for taking showers, immediately looked down at Dean, eyebrows raised. “Dean, did you say something?”

“You can’t make us sleep in separate rooms. That shit won’t work,” Dean repeated.

Sam tilted his head to look up at her, he widened his eyes in that way that Dean told him worked “ _like fuckin’ magic on the grownups, Sammy_ ” and said quietly, “I get nightmares, they're real bad. I gotta sleep with Dean.”

Mrs. Margaret did not look impressed. Instead, her expression got harder. “I see, well this is The System. So, we will keep with The System for tonight, and if there’s a problem then we’ll review it. But for now, Dean, you will sleep in the older boys’ room with Cedric, and Sam will sleep here with Aaron. Do you both understand?”

Dean shook his head at her, “You gonna regret it, lady.”

Her smile went all mean and icy. “We’ll see.”

She did regret it. That first night, Dean sat on the end of Sam’s bed while Sam pressed his face into Dean’s thigh, trying his best not to cry because he hated this place. It was nothing like Riverside Court where there were kids everywhere, where there were always fights, always noise, where everything was always happening and no one cared if he got into bed with Dean at night, if he followed Dean about during the day, if he crawled into Dean’s lap when they watched TV in the TV room. This place was too quiet, it smelt funny, Mrs. Margaret looked like a witch and Aaron was creepy.

Dean ran his hand through his hair, trying to comfort him, he whispered, “You be strong, Sammy. An’ if you need me, then you scream, man, you scream real fuckin’ loud.”

Aaron watched them with those beady, pink eyes of his, all creepy and silent like he’d been ever since they arrived. Dean turned to go, on the way out, he leaned against the doorframe and said in his deepest, most threatening voice. “You touch one hair on his head then you're a fuckin’ dead man. Ya feel me, bitch?”

Little Aaron blinked and nodded in his creepy way, Sam stared up at his brother and in that moment, he loved Dean so fiercely that he wanted to burst with it.

He had a nightmare that night, thinking about Dad in the back of the ambulance, his body swelling up fat and round with blood like a giant strawberry - like Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - his face red and shiny 'cause of the blood, blood gushing out from his mouth, eyes pink and beady like Aaron’s…

He woke up with a scream stuck in his throat, arms reaching out for Dean, for his brother’s familiar, warm body. When he couldn’t feel him, when he could only feel the big cold space in bed beside him, he started to scream, shaking with fear and clutching his blankets tight in his fists. He jerked bolt upright, feeling his pajamas damp underneath him and he knew that _he’d had an accident_. Dean hated it when he did that, always moaned and complained about sleeping in soaked sheets, about the extra laundry duty they got because of it. But Dean wasn’t here right now to complain, Dean was… Dean was… he glanced over at the other bed; Little Aaron was awake, staring at him with his beady pink eyes, just like Dad’s blood strawberry eyes in the dream.

He screamed harder, “Dean! Dean! Dean!”

Dean came running, slammed the door open, shouting out Sam’s name. He dived onto Sam’s bed and dragged him into his arms, for once not caring about his wet, smelly pajamas. He squeezed him tight, wrapping him up entirely in his familiar, warm body. Sam sobbed in relief and clung to him, moaning _Dean, Dean, Dean_ , into Dean’s neck, over and over like a prayer.

When Mrs. Margaret arrived, wearing a long robe, her hair a wild, witchy mess half-way down her back, Dean turned around and swore at her, spitting out every bad curse word he’d learned at Riverside Court.

Afterwards, Dean got punished for using those words, and only three days later they were moved on, Mrs. Margaret refused to have them around, sending daggered looks at Dean and calling them “unnatural” while they waited for Miss Jeanette to arrive to pick them up. Dean called her an evil bitch while Sam wrapped his small arms around his brother’s waist, pressed his cheek against his brother’s hip, and stuck his tongue out at her.

 

 

**************************

 

Riverside Court was just like they’d left it, most of the kids they’d known were still there, and they welcomed them back with tough-kid nods and complicated handshakes that Dean knew but Sam had no idea. He stood next to Dean, fingers locked in Dean’s sleeve.

“See yo’ fag-ass little brother still fuckin’ retarded,” one of the kids said to Dean.

“Yeah, an’ I see you still a piece of shit with a fat fuckin’ mouth,” snapped back Dean. “You wanna taste my knuckles, motherfucker?”

“You wanna eat shit, asshole?” screamed the other kid.

“Bring it, bitch!” shouted Dean and slammed his fist into the boy’s face.

Sam’s heart started to pound as he watched Dean kick the shit out of the boy, riding him down to the ground where he loomed over him, fists pummeling the kid’s mouth. Eventually he stood up, chest heaving as he staggered back towards Sam, pulling Sam flush against him, strong hand on his chubby shoulders.

“Why won’t any of you goddamn bitches learn that you don’t say _one single fuckin’ word_ ‘bout my brother?”

 

 

They soon got a reputation, the adults in charge deciding before they’d already arrived anywhere that they were trouble, every foster home in the City getting to hear about those Winchester boys. They weren’t the worst; there were twelve year old kids in the system already hooked on drugs, hard-faced thirteen year old boys selling it on street corners, fourteen year old girls pregnant with their pimps’ babies, enough stories of urban teenage depravity to make a Fox News executive come in his pants. But there was something about them that people didn’t like, that made them suspicious, made them look at the two of them with tight lips and disapproving eyes, regarding them warily, distastefully, like there was something offensive in their very being.

Sam didn’t care, though; he didn’t care because Dean didn’t care. Dean never gave a fuck about what people thought about them, or that’s what he said anyway, that’s what he’d tell Sam while he taught him stuff, important shit, he’d say, shit that’ll make you survive, Sammy, cause that’s what’s all about. Dean taught him how to use a knife, which part of a boy’s (and girl’s) body was the most tender, which move could cause the most damage – where he could smash his knuckles, where he could aim a kick. Being tough was necessary, and for Sam, who was small and plump and liked to read, being tough was essential: after all, as much as he wanted to, Dean couldn’t be with him for every hour of the day.

 

 

Sam was eight years old when some brave and really fucking stupid kid first called him and Dean faggots. Dean broke the kid’s nose and two ribs for that comment, pounding his face in between yelling, “He my brother, you sick fuck!” only stopping when Sam sprang forward and tugged on his sleeve to pull him away. Dean immediately spun around, eyes only for Sam, as Sam shook his head at him and said solemnly, “I think he got it, Dean.”

Dean smirked and wiped the blood off on his t-shirt so it looked like warpaint. He ruffled Sam’s hair with his unfighting fist, and sagged down against Sam. Sam twisted in the embrace, pushing his face up into the crook of Dean’s neck, his favorite place; he inhaled the scent of Dean’s skin, letting his lips press against Dean’s throbbing pulse. He liked doing that, liked the feeling of Dean’s blood, Dean’s body, Dean’s heartbeat against his hands or his mouth.

When they lay in bed at night, he liked to slide his hand under Dean’s t-shirt, hold his palm over Dean’s chest to feel his heart beat, making sure he was still alive, reassuring himself that he was still there, still with him. He knew all about the human body, had read books about it from the school library, knew it was the heart that pumped blood around the body, that blood carried oxygen and that when you lost a lot of blood, _bled out, like Dad_ , then you would die from lack of oxygen.

Dean got it. Dean got him and he never minded when Sam would press his body hard up against him in bed, just to feel him breathe, his chest going up and down as Dean’s lungs exhaled and inhaled. Dean understood that these things mattered when you loved someone as much as he loved Dean.

They were in Riverside Court for another year before they got moved again, but they were trouble, people didn’t like them, foster mothers and fathers, social workers and teachers always eying them suspiciously, making comments about their _unnatural closeness_. Sam never bothered trying to be friends with the other kids; sure, he’d attract allies, kids who saw being friends with him as a way of getting close to Dean, becoming one of Dean’s gang, or just using Sam to help them with their homework. But Sam never felt like he needed anyone else, Dean was his protector, his entire world. Dean was everything.

 

 

 

There were fights all the time, every day at Riverside Court, and Dean was frequently in the middle of them. It definitely didn’t help that they were in the minority – two of only a handful of white kids in the system – but Dean never gave a shit about the odds. He had a smart mouth, he was fearless and he didn’t care who he went up against, and wherever they went Dean attracted attention, whether it was his skin color, his attitude, his too-pretty, too-delicate looking face, or just him, the way he was, it didn’t matter, everybody seemed to want a piece of Dean.

“Why do they do that, man? Why all these fuckin’ kids always up in my goddamn shit, Sammy?” he bitched to Sam, spitting a mouthful of blood into the sink from a cut lip. Sam perched on the sink surround next to him and reached out to hold Dean’s face, tilt his head his way. Dean looked at him, eyes widening as Sam passed his thumb carefully over Dean’s busted lip.

“We’ll get ‘em,” he said quietly, “you watch, they ain’t goin’ nowhere, Dean, but you and me – we’re gonna get outta this shithole and make good, do better than all of ‘em.”

He nodded at Dean, so sure of his own words. Dean huffed out a breath, pulled his face out of Sam’s grasp, smiling ruefully, “Yeah, we’ll see.”

Dean was frightened of nothing, nobody, but he did have a weak-spot: Sam.

They’d been in a new home only three days before Sam attracted the attention of one of the “bad” kids, someone who Dean had beaten down, who wanted to get revenge. He was called Ryan, he liked to play with matches and he was, in Sam’s opinion, a complete psycho. He’d just about managed to get the better of the kid the first time around, but Ryan was obsessed with bringing Sam down, and in the end, got his revenge: he climbed into Sam’s bunk one night while he slept curled up against Dean and dropped a lighted match into his hair.

All Sam’s hair was burned off, though it did grow back eventually, except for one patch on his right temple where the hair refused to grow, the skin underneath it puckered and sheared pink in that shiny way of burn tissue. Dean blamed himself, hated himself for being fast asleep, for not putting the fire out quicker, for panicking when he’d awoken with the stench of smoke in his nose and Sam’s screams in his ears, for not protecting him. He sat by Sam’s bed in the ER and cried more than Sam ever remembered him crying when Dad had died.

The only thing that made Dean feel better, than made his eyes shine again was planning to get the kid back. He spent nights going over the plan, figuring it out in his head and whispering it into Sam’s ear at night, fingers smoothing lovingly over Sam’s shorn head, over the soft, shiny burn tissue.

“He'll pay, Sammy, that motherfucker will get his, we’ll fuck him up but good. After what that bitch did to you, ain’t nobody get to do that shit to you, not while I’m still breathin’…”

Sam smiled against Dean’s chest, hooked his foot around Dean’s calves, drawing them in closer, sighing out peacefully as Dean pressed soft kisses against his scarred temple.

They jumped the kid on his way back from school, dragged him out to the empty house two blocks over, where the junkies hung out. Dean pinned him to the floor, straddled him and pulled down his pants, so Sam could carve his initials into the kid’s ass with Dean’s favorite knife.

Sam never forgot the look on Dean’s face as Sam sank the blade into the soft, pale skin, pride and approval and complete and utter devotion. He felt his blood thrill to it, pumping hard in his head, as the kid whimpered and bucked beneath them, a stream of urine soaking the front of his jeans and the concrete floor underneath. Dean cursed, called him a cunt, Sam laughed out loud and the kid blubbered and begged as blood rolled over the peachy soft globes of his ass. He shit his pants too, just as Sam was starting the first line of the “W”, and the foul smell of shit blended with the blood and piss as Sam finished the job, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

He raised his eyes from his handiwork and saw Dean’s face only inches from his own, Dean’s eyes were shining, his mouth smiling in that way that only Sam got to see, that smile that was all for him.

“ _Sammy_ ,” Dean breathed out and Sam grinned, clicked his teeth and tossed the knife in the air, catching it one-handed – a trick Dean had taught him – Dean huffed out a laugh and leaned in to press a kiss to Sam’s lips.

Afterwards, when Dean climbed off the kid, when he deemed that the job was done, he threw one arm around Sam’s shoulders, other hand smoothing over Sam’s shaven head, and rolled the kid onto his back with the toe of his boot. He leaned down and spat in the kid’s face, hissing out: “You come near us again, you bitch-ass freak. You fuckin’ _look_ at my brother again, and I swear to God I will carve up your motherfuckin’ dick so good you ain’t never gonna be stickin’ it in no fuckin’ bitch! Ya feel me, motherfucker?”

He broke off, trembling with emotion, turned and spat again, right next to the kid’s body in the pool of blood and urine and shit. Sam could feel Dean shaking, the line of his skinny thirteen year old body pressed up against Sam’s softer, chubbier one. Sam thrust his hand into the back pocket of Dean’s jeans, spread his small fingers over the hard curve of Dean’s ass and said quietly, “C’mon, Dean, let’s go. He got it.”

 

 

 

*****************************

 

 

His hair grew back and he didn’t care about the burnt patch on his temple. Sure, when they first moved to a new school, a new foster home, then the kids would mock him, trash talk, whatever, but they soon learned if they wanted to stay in one piece then they’d be better off keeping their mouths shut. And by the time Sam was twelve years old, even the new kids in the system knew better than to try and mess with the Winchesters.

“They think I’m a psychopath,” said Dean. They were lying in bed, staring out at the huge curtain-less window on the other side of the room, Sam’s head resting on Dean’s chest, ear against his ribcage, listening hard to the thump-thump-thump of his brother’s heart. The room was tiny, closet-sized, “Like in Harry Potter, like his cupboard under the stairs,” Sam had whispered when they first moved in. Dean had cuffed him, smiled and called him dork, in that fond, dumb voice he liked to use. But Sam loved the room, loved this foster home, loved that he and Dean got to share this little room with their bunk beds. He liked bunk beds. He took the top bunk and Dean the bottom, though he always crept down the ladder in the middle of the night, always making his way into Dean’s bed. It was protected, it was safe, their own little world.

“I’m bein’ serious, Sammy,” he added.

“You ain't no psychopath,” Sam slurred sleepily.

Dean shifted, moving so he could look down at Sam, so their eyes could meet, “I think I might be,” he said quietly.

Sam blinked, looked up at him, into his beloved, familiar face, into his eyes, shining in the dark room, reflected light from the streetlamps outside, “No, Dean. You just – you just do what you gotta – to keep us safe, man. Anyway, who fuckin’ cares what they think? I know you.”

Dean nodded, but he still looked uncertain, unhappy. It made Sam’s body hurt to see him look like that, made him feel tight and unhappy and achy. He smoothed his fingers over Dean’s cheek, said, “Do that thing for me, Dean.”

Dean blinked, caught Sam’s hand in his own, brought Sam’s chubby fingers to his face, pressing them against his mouth, against that small private stubbly place between his top lip and his nose, so his breath was tickling Sam’s skin, like he was breathing in Sam’s scent, in the scent of his fingers.

Dean dropped his hand and shifted carefully, turning onto his side until he was propped up on his elbow, Sam on his back, right shoulder against the wall. He looked up into Dean’s face; saw the soft, knowing smile.

“Please, Dean,” he begged.

Dean’s mouth got softer and he nodded, eyes shining. He slid his hand under the covers, down Sam’s body, pushing up his thin t-shirt and slipping under the waistband of his boxers, taking his small cock in his much bigger hand. Sam shook and trembled as he felt himself get hard in Dean’s hand, as he felt Dean’s eyes on him, burning and loving, whispering, “C’mon, Sam, c’mon, baby, let go, my Sammy...” He felt himself tremble, cry out, biting his lip as he shook helplessly, hissing out Dean’s name.

“Shh, it okay, c’mon, Sam, do it, do it for me, baby, c’mon, wanna see you...”

And that was it; he came, feeling tears pooling behind his eyes, turning his face against Dean’s shoulder, his mouth wet and panting against Dean’s skin, the soft hairs on his forearm.

“Dean,” he breathed. “Dean, Dean...” over and over, his eyes tight shut, feeling his mind somewhere else, floating away, euphoric and hysterical.

“Sammy,” Dean murmured and Sam felt him lean down, felt his lips on Dean’s, the soft press of their mouths together, felt Dean’s lips move, muttering his name. “Sam...” Sam smiled and felt Dean’s smile against his own mouth.

“Go to sleep,” Dean told him, and Sam nodded, snuggled down into the covers, turning his face into the crook of Dean’s shoulder.

That wasn’t the first time; Dean had been the one who’d shown him how his dick worked, how it got hard and stiff with blood when he was turned on, what to do about it, how to make himself come. Dean had been doing it to himself for years, had never hidden anything from Sam, Sam could remember being seven, eight years old, those first couple of years after Dad died, sleeping close against Dean and hearing him jerk off, hearing the quiet slap, slap, slap of his hand on his cock. He would pretend to sleep, nestle closer against him, feel the shudder and freeze of Dean’s orgasm ripple up and down his own small body, making him feel a part of it, a part of his brother’s pleasure.

 

********************************

 

Sam’s twelfth year was also the year that Dean started working for Little Stevie. Little Stevie was king on the Westside. Sam had grown up with stories of him, everyone knew him, knew better than to mess with anyone connected with him. Dean wasn’t dumb, he trailed round to the salvage yard where they knew the big guy worked, where he had his base, and Dean hung around outside, until one of the guys noticed him.

“Y’all should give me a fuckin’ job, fixin’ the cars, I’m good with engines,” Dean boasted, and the guy laughed at him, but Dean kept coming by and they kept noticing him – this skinny, punk-ass, white kid with the big mouth – until Little Stevie himself was roused. He came out of his office, slow and majestic, wanting to see what the commotion was; his eyes skated over Dean, lingering, taking in every inch of him. He shook his head, saying to his assembled guys: “A-ight, a-ight. Ee-nough! I wanna see what he got. Let him at the Camaro, if he do good, I wanna know.” He turned to Dean and gave him a silky smile, “If you fuck up my car, I will cut you, yo. Ya feel me, white-boy?”

Dean grinned back at him, confident and triumphant, “Thanks, man, you ain’t never gonna regret this.”

Dean did good, he had a knack with engines, with anything electrical, a natural ability, he’d fixed Sam’s calculator when one of the other kids had tried to smash it, (he’d fixed that kid’s face too), fixed Sam’s watch after Sam had left it on when he’d showered one day. He understood mechanics, electrics in the same way Sam understood math or chemistry, those long slender fingers of his delving into the cars’ innards and immediately finding the problem. Dean spent his weekends there, working, while Sam would lie among the weeds and rocks of the yard or sometimes inside the car with the radio on, always with a book, and always watching Dean.

And, according to Dean, Little Stevie was impressed.

“He likes me,” Dean boasted one night over dinner, “he says I’m awesome.”

At that, DMZ, one of the other kids, same age as Dean, but much bigger, much heavier, looked up, sneered, “Shit, he like yo’ skinny, white ass, faggot!”

Dean was across the table in a second, fist connecting with the other boy’s face, flimsy table and chairs splintering underneath them as they rolled to the floor. Sam jumped away, watching and breathing excitedly, kicking out at DMZ’s legs every time he rolled near him.

Dean had him beaten real quick, Dean was learning real fighting then, he’d dropped out of school and he was a regular, a promising talent at the local boxing club when he wasn’t working for Little Stevie. Sam would meet him there after school: set up in the corner, take out his homework, feeling grateful that he only ever needed half his brain to do his homework, the rest of him completely engaged with watching Dean work out, his lean, compact, muscled body gleaming with sweat as he pummeled punch bags, feet dancing expertly, naked save for the clinging silk shorts.

After training, Dean would take on some of the other club members, and after every victory ('cause Dean always won), he’d come bounding up to Sam, dripping with sweat and grinning ear to ear, he’d lean over, sweat falling onto Sam’s open textbook, and pant out, “When you gonna join, man? You gotta be up there too, Sammy, trainin’ with me!”

But Sam would always shake his head, shy and embarrassed by his short, plump body, his soft, fleshy belly and man-titties, his pudgy legs and dimpled arms.

“No, no, go away, Dean. Gotta finish this.”

And Dean would shake his head at him; muss his hair with a fond smile, “A-ight, genius.”

 

 

Dean started making real money quickly, his pants would be full of rolls of bills, he’d love to fan them out, count them and slide them back into his pockets, smirks all round for their dorm-mates. But the other kids would never dare steal from Dean, Dean was feared by then, Dean was the Westside’s under-18’s boxing champion, part of Little Stevie’s crew, and the big guy’s favorite.

Little Stevie liked Sam, always greeted him with a friendly call of “’Sup, Sammy! Our math genius!” He’d gotten that from Dean because Dean was always boasting about Sam, face lit up and eyes shining when he told Little Stevie and his guys all about how smart his little brother was. It made Sam feel awkward and embarrassed and he wished that Dean would just shut up, but there was another part of him that thrilled to it, loved the genuine pride and love in Dean’s eyes when he spoke about him, so he never did say anything and Dean carried on.

Little Stevie loved Dean. In a short time, Dean had risen quickly in his favor, from the teenage punk who’d fixed all of Little Stevie’s favorite cars to the teenage punk who was now one of his closest guys. He worked longer hours for him, spending less and less time with the engines and more time out and about “running errands”. Sam knew exactly what those errands were; he might spend most of his time with his head in a book, but he wasn’t dumb or blind about the reality of their life, he knew exactly how Little Stevie made his money. He knew what Dean was doing when he took out one of the many huge SUV’s that filled the yard - collecting money, regular payments from Little Stevie’s corner crews, from the local bars and the strip club that paid him percentages, from the girls who worked the streets over on 6th and 7th. Dean collected from all of them, taking a percentage, skimming off the top as all of Little Stevie’s guys did.

Sam didn’t feel guilty about how Dean earned his money, how Dean was able to buy them both cool, new clothes and sneakers, how Dean could buy him every new electronic device he ever wanted, a new laptop, phone and digital camera, and still have enough left over to take Sam places whenever he got any free time: concerts, movies, the mall. Sam never felt guilty for any money Dean spent on them, this was how the world worked, a simple matter of economics. He and Dean had been dealt a shitty blow in life, it was only right that they were clawing things back, trying to make money where they could, playing the Game and building a better life for themselves, away from this dead-end shithole that was the Westside, and the only way to do that was to get money. Lots of it. It didn’t matter where it came from, the one thing, the only fucking thing, his life had taught him so far was that it was survival of the fittest, you couldn’t count on anything and the only thing worth any fucking thing was your family and your own smarts.

 

 

***********************

 

One hot afternoon after school, Dean met him with an enormous grin on his face.

“I gotta show you somethin’,” he said. “A-ight, man, this is so fuckin’ cool. You gotta see this.”

It turned out that the awesome thing Dean was talking about was a wrecked car, a beat-up, barely standing, old, black muscle car.

“Check it out,” said Dean, eyes glazed over as he ran a hand slowly over the dented paintwork. “You won’t remember, you was too young, but Dad used to have one of these babies. A Chevy Impala, man, '69, same fuckin’ year. Ain’t that the fuckin’ shit?”

He raised his eyes to Sam, that mesmerized, glowing look on his face that made Sam’s chest ache, so he nodded and smiled back at Dean, “It’s awesome,” he agreed. “I love it.”

Dean smiled wider and nodded approvingly. “Damn straight. She’s a goddamn thing of beauty. Or, she will be. Once I fix her up. Little Stevie says I can use the parts from other wrecks on the yard, I can work on her here.”

Sam nodded again, trying to make his expression more enthusiastic, luckily for him, Dean was barely seeing him, too wrapped up in staring at the car.

The summer of Sam’s thirteenth year was mainly spent working on the car when Dean wasn’t out “working”. Well, Dean would work on it, while Sam read or worked on his projects for school and for himself. He lay in the sun, listening to Dean tinker behind him, classic rock on low, so different from the normal Westside hip-hop sound.

Occasionally, Little Stevie would come out, puffing on one of his big, fat Cubans, that roly-poly, fat-man walk of his. The picture of capitalistic exploitation, Sam would think as he closed his copy of Marx or Schumpeter or Keynes. Obese, he whispered under his breath as he watched the fat guy waddle around, liking the sound of the word in his mouth, the hissing consonants, but scared at the same time, self-conscious of his own round face and soft belly.

As soon as Little Stevie spotted Dean, he grinned, called out a greeting and waddled up to where Dean was working.

“’Sup, man, how my mechanical genius doin’?”

Dean looked up, hot and sweaty, gleaming in the sun; wiped the grease off on his tee and shrugged, “Doin’ good, man. You got one of those big-ass motherfuckers for me?”

He nodded at the enormous fat cigar Little Stevie was puffing on, causing Little Stevie to laugh, fond and delighted, “This fuckin’ kill yo’ skinny white ass, Winchester.”

“Naw, not me,” Dean boasted, sliding his pack of cigarettes out his back jeans pocket. He looked up, grinned at his boss, who leaned close and squeezed Dean’s bicep, hand lingering just a bit too long for Sam’s liking.

“You packin’ on some good muscle there, yo? You gonna win me some real fuckin’ money next weekend, Deano?”

Dean hesitated, that look in his eyes that Sam knew, that made Sam smirk inside, that get-your-fucking-hands-off-me look, before he grinned back, all fake eagerness, answering, “Oh yeah, you don’t gotta worry ‘bout me none, boss. I’m gonna wipe the fuckin’ floor with that Eastside bitch.”

 

 

Dean went out a lot. Usually work for Little Stevie, but sometimes, Sam knew that there were girls, too. After work.

“A man gotta fuckin’ enjoy himself sometime,” Dean would say.

He’d talk with the other kids, exchange stories about the Westside bitches, except Dean didn’t call them bitches.

“They women,” he announced, “Little Stevie don’t like no women bein’ called bitches, says it’s fuckin’ disrespectful.” The other kids shut up then, waiting for Little Stevie’s pronouncements via Dean.

Afterwards, Sam watched him get ready from his bunk, ever-present book on his belly.

“Why you gotta go out again tonight?” he asked.

Dean sighed, exasperated, running a gelled-up hand through his hair, “I gotta, man. You know that, Sam. If we gonna get outta this shithole we need the fuckin’ money.”

“But you been out every night. I don’t like you bein’ out all the time, Dean.”

“Yeah, I know that, but think, man, when we have money, me and you, we can leave. I’m gonna be eighteen soon, I gotta get enough before then, so we can get us our own place. You want that, don’tcha, Sam?”

He wanted it more than anything, wanted them to have a place of their own, no one else but him and Dean, it sounded too good, too perfect.

“Sam?” Dean prompted. He sat on the edge of the bed, “C’mon, quit poutin’. Worse than a fuckin’ chick.”

“Thought you had to call them women now,” retorted Sam.

Dean laughed, his face lighting up in that way that made Sam’s stomach ache, that made him want so deeply. He reached up, curled his fingers in Dean’s shirt, tugged at it, “Dean,” he murmured.

Dean looked down at him, his eyes darkened; he picked up Sam’s book from where it lay on his stomach and tossed it aside. He sprawled out over him, laughing shakily into the pillow as Sam gripped onto his belt, trying to maneuver him where he wanted him, but Dean was too heavy to move now, his body was hard, lean and muscled, a real street fighter’s body, all of him pressing down into Sam, pinning him to the mattress.

“Fuck, Dean, you’re squashin’ me!” Sam protested after a moment.

Dean laughed again and rolled off him, onto his back, Sam shifting to throw one leg over him, pressing his hard cock up against Dean’s hip, leaning down to push his face into the crook of Dean’s neck, smelling the hair-gel Dean had just applied. Dean sighed and threw one lazy arm around him, dragging it up and down his back slowly. Sam sighed happily and ground his hips down against Dean’s. He could feel Dean’s hard-on against his belly through his tight jeans, feel how he got even harder the more Sam squirmed, feel how his own dick go harder too. He rocked down against Dean and it felt amazing, all this heat and buzziness in his belly, churning up his stomach and making his blood pump fast.

Dean groaned, his face scrunching up as he tightened his hold on Sam, pulled him closer, beginning to move his hips, faster and faster, against Sam’s, mumble his name over and over. Sam knew exactly the moment when Dean came, he could see the way his eyelashes fluttered, the tight, sudden look of pain and wonder and he loved it, there was nothing more perfect than that, than knowing that he was the one who put that look on Dean’s face. That no matter how many other girls Dean saw or how many others looked at him in that way, he’d always be the only one that mattered.

 

 

*************************

 

They left Riverside Court as soon as they could, as soon as Dean turned eighteen and convinced Miss Jeanette, (Mrs. Farrow now, had been for years), that he was responsible enough to be Sam’s guardian. She gave in almost straight away, she knew better than anyone how much Dean doted on Sam, how much Sam’s safety and welfare meant to him, and hell, she was most likely relieved to be rid of two of her most challenging case files, though that was probably unfair. Sam knew that she had done her best, that her job was not easy, and anyway, he didn’t care about anything anymore, the only thing that mattered was that he was finally going to have his brother to himself.

They got a place just three or four blocks over from Riverside Court, one of a handful of half-way decent tenements in a row of derelicts and junkie hang-outs that belonged to Little Stevie. Sam didn’t care about any of that, about them being even closer to Little Stevie’s kingdom. They had their own house, and for the first time in his life, he had his own room, just for him, not that he ever slept in it, but it was good for studying, somewhere to keep his books, his computer equipment, though his books soon spread out, piles and piles of them in every room of the house. Dean would bitch about it, say shit like, “Got more goddamn books than a fuckin’ library,” but it was Dean who paid for them, handing over the money to Sam with a smile, willing and happy and proud. Sam had been advanced three grades by the time he turned fourteen, taking classes with the seniors: Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Anatomy, Physics… Dean would pick them up, thumb through them and shake his head, looking impressed and wistful.

“Jesus, man, so fuckin’ smart.”

Sam would shrug, embarrassed, feel guilty because although Dean had dropped out of high school with nothing, his brother wasn’t dumb. He had a clear, effortless understanding of money, of how things worked, how to play the game, work it in their favor. In a different life, if Dean had been the younger brother then maybe he would be starting college by now, studying math or engineering, something like that, instead of running around after Little Stevie, like his favorite pet.

 

A couple of months after they moved into their own place, Sam’s high school principal sent him home with a note for his guardian. Dean read it and looked up at Sam with a worried frown.

“He says I gotta come in, talk to him about you. What you up to, Sammy?”

Sam shook his head, genuinely confused, “I don’t know, man, I ain’t been doin’ nothin’ wrong, Dean, I promise.”

“Shit, I know that,” said Dean with a reassuring smile.

Sam watched Dean get changed into his one and only suit for the meeting with the principal. It was the same suit he’d worn for his juvie hearing two years ago, the same one he’d worn for Trey Dumont’s funeral only a few weeks back.

Dean turned around to face him, biting his lip as he fiddled with the cuffs, “You think I gotta wear a tie? Or that too much?”

“Naw, you look great,” said Sam honestly.

They saw the principal together, two chairs pulled close, Sam itching to put out his hand and hold onto Dean, his hand, his arm, anything, just the sight of his brother looking awkward and uncomfortable in his courtroom-funeral suit was too much for him, made his heart burst with love and pride.

“Mr. Winchester?” asked Principal Freamon.

Dean nodded, “A-ight, yeah, that’s, uh, me.”

The principal glanced up, gave him a close look then nodded thoughtfully, looking back down at his papers.

“First of all, thank you for coming in to see me, it is much appreciated.”

“Sure,” said Dean, “anything concerning Sam concerns me. Uh, Sir.”

“Right, right,” said the guy. “Well, I’ll cut to the chase. Sam is – without a shadow of a doubt – one the most gifted and intelligent students I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. His test scores are extraordinary,” he looked up, eyebrows raised and Sam felt himself blush, red stain of embarrassment flooding over his features. “But of course, you must know that already. After all, we have already advanced Sam several grades despite his age, and he is enrolled in all the advanced classes we are able to teach him, and despite all that, he is still outperforming our most intelligent seniors, not to mention certain members of our faculty.” He sighed then, and stopped fiddling about with his papers, fixing Dean with a serious look, “So, therefore I think it would be in Sam’s best interests if he leaves this school and attends the Chilcott Academy downtown.”

“Chilcott Academy – that a, uh, private school?” asked Dean.

“Yes, that’s right, it is a private institution. But it especially caters to gifted and talented children, children like Sam who are not being done any favors by being kept in the public school system.” He sighed again, “Normally, a child like Sam would’ve been discovered earlier, placed in a special environment better suited to his abilities at a much earlier age. But unfortunately, your situation, and, of course our current administration’s endless budget slashing means that the education in this city is not what it once was, and it is far too easy for those talented students to slip through the cracks.”

Sam tuned out the guy’s words, they’d heard far too much over the years from social workers, foster families and teachers about budget-slashing-squeezing-cutting-whatever term they decided to use for Sam not to recognize a soap-box when he heard one. He was still trying to take in what the Principal was saying to Dean: they wanted to transfer him to a special school, a school for gifted and talented children.

While a part of him was soaring, exhilarated that he was finally going to get out of high school, be truly challenged academically for the first time in his life, there was another part that was terrified. This was his neighborhood, he and Dean had never lived, never worked anywhere else, they belonged here. Here he was somebody, Sam Winchester, Dean’s little brother, despite his skin color, his geek status and his small, plump body he’d never once been bullied at school, the other kids too shit-scared of Dean’s reputation, of Little Stevie’s blanket influence to mess with him… If he went somewhere else, somewhere where his voice and his accent and his clothes all spoke of the Westside, he’d be opening himself up to more than ridicule.

“You think Sam should go to this school?” asked Dean.

“Yes, I think it’s essential that he does. They have programs they can tailor to his needs – he will be able to take college classes – which he is more than capable of doing, I assure you.”

“Shit, man, college? For serious? He’s fourteen!”

“Yes,” said the principal with a small smile.

“Uh, I guess this will cost, though? Private school ain’t cheap, I know.”

“Sam will be entitled to a scholarship,” said the principal with a shrug, “the school has a program for students from more disadvantaged backgrounds.”

“Disadvantaged?” said Dean with a twist of his mouth, “Yeah, okay, but I got money, Sir, I can pay, Sam don’t gotta be labeled disadvantaged.”

Sam felt his heart swell at Dean’s words and tossed him a quick glance; Dean’s eyes were narrowed in annoyance, expression defiant. The principal noticed too and he nodded, said, “Alright, well, I’m sure we’ll work something out.”

Once they’d regained the car, Dean let out a long, shaky breath; he turned his head to give Sam an unreadable look.

“Jesus, man… You really are a freaky genius, ain’tcha? It’s like official now. Fuck, Sammy.”

Sam blushed again, eyes burning where they met Dean’s, the look of wonderment and awe on his big brother’s face making him tingle all over.

“I don’t-” he started, “I don’t got to go to this school, Dean, not if you ain’t cool with it?”

“What the fuck you sayin’, man? Course I’m fuckin’ cool with it! You’re my brother and you’re gonna have every fuckin’ thing you deserve and that man – he says you deserve it. Don’t talk such shit!” Dean shook his head, mouth twitching as he started the car, “Damn, man, if Dad was here, now, he’d be so fuckin’ proud of you…”

“Shut up,” Sam said with another blush. Dean cast him a look and laughed, nudging him with one elbow, until Sam rolled his eyes and smiled at him.

“Hey, you wanna help me take off this monkey suit when we get back, yo?” He smirked and raised an eyebrow at Sam.

Sam felt the heat dip and roll in his belly at the look on Dean’s face, his cock springing to life with the kind of south-ward blood rush that sometimes had him worrying for the state of his poor blood-deprived brain.

As soon as they got back inside, he was on Dean, pulling him down into a kiss, long and deep and breathtaking, then Dean was grabbing him by his shirt, twisting him around and wrapping his arms around from behind, sniggering and pushing and stumbling upstairs together, Dean laughing breathlessly into the side of his face, muttering, “God, you, Sam, you, so fuckin’ smart, so fuckin’ proud of you…”


	2. Chapter 2

They developed a routine after a while: Dean would give him a ride to school, then head off to the yard, to work, always there to pick him up after school got out in his beloved Chevy Impala, the distinctive growl of the engine greeting Sam every afternoon as he tripped down the white stone steps of Chilcott Academy. He didn’t know how Dean managed it, how he always managed to be there when Little Stevie liked to have him around all the time, but Dean was always there, and when he asked, Dean just shrugged, said, “Whatever, he owes me some goddamn favors, don’t you fuckin’ worry none ‘bout that.”

Dean would drive him back to the yard; let him hang out in Little Stevie’s backroom or at the boxing club. Afterwards, they’d head home, have dinner before Dean went out again, usually till late, doing Little Stevie’s bidding. No matter how late Dean came home, Sam was always still awake, incapable of sleeping even now without Dean in bed beside him. Dean felt guilty, didn’t like leaving Sam every night for so long, but the house was safe, everyone knew who lived there, and all the other guys were around them. So Sam would read to pass the time, anxiously darting a look at the clock if it got to 2am and Dean still wasn’t back.

One memorable night Sam was surprised by Dean getting back early, not even 10pm when he heard the door slam shut, the sound of his brother swearing and stumbling around the kitchen, glass shattering.

He came down the stairs, pushing his hair out of his face, to see Dean standing half naked in the middle of the kitchen, his blood-soaked shirt pressed up against a jagged looking wound, high up on his left shoulder.

Sam gasped out loud, feeling tears spring to his eyes as Dean spun around, eyes going wide and panicked when he spotted Sam.

“It ain’t – it’s worse than it look, man,” Dean stammered quickly. “I’m still standin’, Sam, I’m okay. You should see the other motherfucker cause he sure ain’t, made damn fuckin’ sure of that, bitch grazed me is all.”

Sam shook his head, tears blurring. “You should be in the hospital,” he said.

Dean shrugged painfully, dropped into a chair, “C’mon, you know better than that, that shit ain’t gonna happen. Poh-lice motherfuckers will be all over our asses if I do that. You know that.”

Sam blinked at him and felt something harden inside him, an undiscovered tough streak suddenly waking up, like that moment in The Godfather when Michael Corleone stands outside the hospital with Enzo the Baker, ready to do anything to protect his father, his family.

“A-ight, let me look,” he ordered.

Slowly, Dean dropped his hand, the blood-stained shirt, revealing the seeping gash.

“Can you fix it?” he asked, biting his lip and fixing Sam with a desperate sort of a look. “I, uh, I got the first-aid kit, but, I don’t think I can do it on my own, man.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully, looking closely at the wound, where the bullet had grazed his brother’s skin. He’d done first aid at school and at Riverside Court. It had been kinda necessary, vicious fights were a daily occurrence and he’d seen Dean being stitched up by the supervisors plenty of times; he knew what to do. He could do this. He could feel it with a stark sort of clarity, he could do this, do anything for Dean.

He raised his eyes, meeting Dean’s watery gaze and nodded again, “Yeah. I can do this.”

Dean smiled in relief, patting his arm clumsily, “Good boy.”

He sterilized the needle carefully, letting Dean finish off the bottle of whiskey as he threaded it with the suture thread. He got Dean to sit directly under the bright bare bulb and got to work cleaning the cut first, using the iodine in the kit, feeling Dean tremble and wince with pain under his fingers.

His stitches weren’t great, kinda clumsy, but they’d hold and he’d done it, he’d patched up his brother, he’d really done it. Fourteen fucking years old.

Dean staggered away into the bathroom when he was done, drunk and swaying. He braced his hands on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, his white pale face and sweat drenched hair.

“Shit, that looks – that looks awesome, man,” he whispered incredulously, catching Sam’s eye in the mirror as he came close. “You – you’re fuckin’ incredible, Sammy.” He leaned down, placed a kiss on Sam’s cheek. “Amazing,” he whispered.

Sam wanted to stay home the next day, make sure Dean was alright, but Dean wouldn’t hear of it, insisted he’d be fine.

“S’only a flesh wound,” he shrugged. Sam rolled his eyes and Dean grinned cheerfully, crying out: “Get to school!” in that obnoxious voice that was a (bad) impression of Mrs. Binder, one of the old supervisors at Riverside Court.

So he went to school. He had to take the bus there and back so it was later than normal by the time he got home. To his annoyance, when he did finally get back Dean wasn’t alone. Beano, one of Little Stevie’s guys, was standing in front of the refrigerator and helping himself to the remains of the lasagna Dean had cooked two days ago.

“Sup, short-round,” he greeted him. Sam glared at him and Beano snorted into his mouthful of food. “Man, this shit good, yo!” he cried, spitting cheese and pasta all over the place as he talked, “Yo’ brother make this? Or you?”

“Dean made it,” Sam said shortly.

Beano snorted again, another spray of marinara sauce and Sam wrinkled his nose. He heard the ceiling creak above him and immediately turned around to head upstairs – to Dean’s – no, _their_ room. Dean was sitting up in bed where Sam had left him, bare-chested with the dressing he’d applied still perfectly in place, and Little Stevie was perching on the edge of the bed, mattress dipping precariously under his substantial weight, one of his hands resting on the outline of Dean’s thigh through the thin sheet.

Sam bit back on the rise of bile to his throat, the resentment and anger at Little Stevie being here – in this room – in their room – invading their private, special place, so close – too fucking close – to Dean. He could tell by the way that Dean was sitting that Dean wasn’t happy about it either, could see it in the quick look Dean gave him when he came in, the warning in his eyes. Sam kept his mouth closed, greeted Little Stevie cheerily, that fake, shy charm he could put on.

“You look after our boy, Sammy,” he wheezed as he got slowly to his feet, rolls of fat shifting. He leaned down, puffing out a long breath, meaty fingers cupping Dean’s face with the kind of soft reverence that was really out of place in a 300-pound murderer and crime boss. Dean smiled up at him, that soft-eyed, demure look of his that Sam recognized as completely fake.

“How you feelin’?” Sam asked after they’d gone.

Dean shrugged, pulled a face, “Fine. He said I don’t have to come back for a week, left me that.” He nodded towards the dresser, the thick roll of bills.

Sam picked it up and started to count. “Christ, Dean, there’s, like, $10,000 here. He left you all this?”

Dean glanced up at him, a small muscle twitching at the edge of his mouth, ignoring the question. “Take it, man, do whatever you want with it. It yours.”

 

 

Sam knew exactly what he wanted to do with the money. He’d been figuring out, reading up, researching and exploring… he had some investments in mind, knew that he could double, triple the money, if he could only figure out how to get it into the bank without attracting any unwanted attention. Bank accounts and investments were not done on the Westside; this was strictly a cash-only neighborhood. Sam knew from Dean that most of Little Stevie’s money lived in the safe in his home and in his office, at the yard. It was the world they operated in; they distrusted banks, and as for online investing or online banking, forget it, most of Little Stevie’s guys, including Little Stevie himself, had never even touched a computer.

But he and Dean were gonna break of out this world, unlike the guys around them, the kids they grew up with, he and Dean had a future. They were gonna get the fuck out of this piece of shit neighborhood, get an apartment downtown, by the Harbor, a loft, he thought, the word, the concept completely foreign to him, but the word enough to inspire daydreams.

Dean had three different fake ID’s, three different social security numbers. One of Little Stevie’s associates, some old Latino guy called Stretch had fixed them all up for him. Stretch was one of Little Stevie’s closest associates, so-called cause he’d done a stretch with him up at Jessup years earlier, and what he didn’t know about fraud wasn’t worth knowing. It was easy for Sam to come along to Little Stevie’s backroom on Friday night, at a time he knew both Little Stevie and Dean would be out together, Dean driving the big boss – the king – around in his favorite SUV, like he did every week, making the tour of his clubs and his corners.

“I need a bank account,” Sam explained to Stretch, “for Dean, in his name. Well, probably two accounts, at least, maybe more. We don’t wanna attract the wrong sorta attention. But I gotta have access to it.”

The old guy watched him closely, sucking on his thin cigarette, “A-ight, and what I get for doin’ this shit fo’ you, kid?”

Sam regarded him steadily, then took a breath and said, “You get for us to owe you a favor – me an’ Dean. If this work out – then me and Dean, we’re gonna be rich, real fuckin’ rich, and I know you wanna piece of that action.”

“A-ight, say I’m in, what do I say to the big guy?”

Sam shrugged, “We’ll let him in when the time’s right.”

Once the money was in the bank, it was easy; Sam had the codes and passwords to move the money – the $10,000 Dean had given him. Only six months later, he was opening up his laptop screen, showing Dean the row of digits in their bank accounts.

“This is what we have now, what I made with the ten thousand you gave me,” he told Dean, watching his brother’s mouth fall open, turning to stare at him with shock and amazement.

“Jesus Christ, man, this for fuckin’ real?”

Sam smiled so hard his facial muscles ached as he nodded at Dean, “Yeah, yeah, Dean, and we can make more. What you get, we put it in here and I can, man, I can fuckin’ double it, triple it. For us, Dean, me an’ you.”

Dean nodded, gulping as his eyes locked on Sam’s, “You’re fuckin’ incredible, Sam.” He pulled him into his arms and Sam sighed happily, pressing his mouth up against Dean’s pulse, layering kisses along his jaw line and throat. He tipped his head back and stared up into Dean’s eyes.

“I ain’t nothin’ without you. You made this in the first place, you do everything for me, you take care of me. I gotta return the favor, I’m gonna step up, we’re gonna be partners, Dean.”

He kept his promise to Stretch, Dean took him along to Little Stevie only a couple of weeks later, desperate to boast to the fat guy about what his little brother could do, how much more money he could make him.

Little Stevie regarded the two of them shrewdly. “A-ight, I want Sammy here, every Friday night, he and Stretch workin’ the accounts. Don’t want no other motherfucker involved. Just us four at the table. Y’all feel me?”

Dean exchanged a quick look with Sam, then they both nodded, in synch, Stretch looking up from his place at the table with his own cool, assessing nod.

“Good,” said Little Stevie slowly, “this change things, yo. If Sammy can make us money like this, real fuckin’ money, then maybe I gotta think ‘bout movin’ the business into more legitimate terri-tory. We gotta meditate on this, Deano.”

 

 

*********************

 

 

Sam gained over 25 pounds and barely grew an inch in the six months after he turned fifteen. He’d always been a chubby kid and their diets had always been pretty shitty, even by Riverside Court standards. Dean tried his best, but the only meals he knew how to cook were bacon and sausage, fried chicken, pancakes and waffles and heavy pasta dishes one of the adult supervisors at Riverside Court had taught him as part of a mandatory Food Education course he’d taken before being granted guardianship of Sam.

After Dean started working most nights, Sam would sit up at the kitchen table and study, munching anxiously on chips and cookies and huge sodas as he waited for Dean to get back, unable to get to bed until he’d heard Dean’s key in the lock. Dean would often come back with bags of take-out; fried chicken and burgers, fries and Chinese food, and Sam would help him finish it, unable to stop himself, the greasy food sitting heavy and unwanted in his gut when he finally went to bed.

Dean could afford to eat like that because Dean trained so often, still fought most weekends at the club, he worked out diligently while Sam was at school; he went for runs around the block, sometimes going as far as the Harbor where the rich folk lived. Sam would watch him strip off after a run and feel a surge of lust and envy deep in his gut, he wanted so much to look as good as Dean, to be worthy of him, but he wasn’t, he was short and pale and pudgy, so he hid his embarrassing, chubby body, under extra large T-shirts and basketball shirts that Dean bought him. And Dean didn’t seem to notice the extra weight, still pulled him into his arms, into his lap, placing kisses over his plump cheeks and soft dimpled shoulders, ground his dick up against his ass and sunk his fingers into his fleshy belly when they lay together in bed. It was a relief that Dean still loved him, that Dean didn’t care how he looked, Dean loved him because he was Sam, because he was “my Sammy, my brother”, or so Dean would whisper into his ear.

And really, that was okay because he loved Dean for the same reasons, because he was his Dean, his brother, the other half of himself. But he also wanted Dean, desired him above anything or anyone else. When he looked at Dean, when he got to watch him shower, get unchanged, his mouth would water, arousal tightening up his balls and making his dick hard. Dean was so beautiful, so desirable, everyone wanted him; Sam could see it in all their faces, the admiration and lust from the girls who watched him fight, who flocked around him, from Little Stevie, always standing just that little bit too close, always touching him somewhere: proprietarial hand on his shoulder, his arm, eyes running over him greedily when he spoke.

It made Sam angry to see it, jealousy burning up in his gut, but he knew he couldn’t say anything; Little Stevie was their benefactor, Dean’s boss. Anyway, he should just be grateful that he had Dean _at all_ , that Dean even wanted to touch him.

“I was thinkin’,” Dean said one morning, as they ate breakfast together, before Sam left for school. “We should get some equipment in the basement, like. I know Greg wants to get rid of some of the old punch bags, the runnin’ machine? Whatcha think? We could fix it up down there, our own home gym. Completely private, man, space for us to work out together.”

Sam glanced across at him, surprised; Dean was watching him closely, eyes wide and genuine, that usual mixture of fondness and concern in his face.

“I know you don’t wanna join the club, Sam, or work out there, but I think you should learn to fight. I’ll feel better if I knew you could handle yourself.”

Sam swallowed and nodded, feeling overwhelmed. “I, um, I dunno, Dean,” he mumbled, not daring to meet his brother’s eyes again. He felt acutely self-conscious, feeling Dean’s gaze on him, as if for the first time ever, seeing under the huge t-shirt and sweats, assessing him, seeing all the extra shameful flesh.

“Sam, look at me,” Dean said softly. Sam gulped and raised his eyes to his brother’s face. “You gotta know, man, I don’t give a shit how you look, that shit ain’t important to me, so I ain’t sayin’ it cause I think you’re ugly or no kinda bullshit like that, cause you ain’t – you’re my brother. But I think, maybe it’s time you started workin’ out, exercisin’ regular, and I know it’s kinda my fault for not watchin’ what you eat and not sayin’ nothin’, but you’ve gotten kinda big, man, and we, shit, we oughta do somethin’.”

Sam felt the tears well up behind his eyes, shame and embarrassment; he ducked his head, trying to hide his face behind his stupid hair, watching the tears drip onto the newspaper in front of him.

“Sam, no, don’t, man, please don’t cry,” Dean said and he sounded hurt, upset. Sam heard the sound of the chair scraping back and he lifted his head, seeing Dean watching him with eyes so full of love and concern that he just wanted to cry harder, hating himself for upsetting Dean like this.

“C’mere,” Dean said quietly, “c’mere, I want you, please, Sam.” He patted his knees and Sam felt a rush of relief, as he slid out of his own chair and stumbled over to Dean’s.

He sank into Dean’s lap, straddling him, so aware of his own ugly, fat body pressed against Dean’s gorgeous, hard one. He felt Dean’s hand slide down his back, fingers burrowing under the hem of his extra-large t-shirt and he flinched, so self-conscious of everything underneath, of himself. He felt Dean squeeze his waist, strong fingers sinking into the pudgy flesh.

“You know, I don’t mind, fact is I kinda like it,” Dean was murmuring into his ear, against the side of his face, “cause it’s you, you know, all you, makes no difference to me if you get as big as Little Stevie, I’ll still want you, don’t never think that. But it ain’t healthy, baby, and I want you to be healthy. And I gotta know that you can handle yourself when I ain’t around. Ya feel me?” He tilted his head back, eyes meeting Sam’s, everything in his gaze that was love and trust and honesty. Sam nodded, feeling the tears continue to spill down his cheeks, unabated and pathetic. Dean smiled at him and reached up with his hand to thumb away the tears. “So we set up the gym, yo? At home, and I teach you how to fight. And, we’ll be more careful with the groceries, eat better? Okay? You promise me that you gonna try to look after yourself better? Okay, man?”

 

************************

 

Sam lost weight quickly, it helped that he finally started to grow up instead of out, shot up three inches in one semester until all his jeans were too short on him, looking comical and exposing strips of ankle. He was relieved, thinking finally that he was gonna be as tall as his big brother. In fact, shortly after Sam turned sixteen, he was nearly topping six foot. His body became more proportional, less round and pudgy, his metabolism speeding up as he grew and exercised regularly, the weight that had dogged him for so many years finally melting away over the next couple of years until when he was seventeen, he was as tall as Dean and okay, not as built or as toned, and in his own eyes, nowhere near as beautiful, but still, not that far off.

He’d agreed to join the club at last, and although he didn’t compete like Dean did, much preferred watching Dean competing than ever getting involved himself, but he wasn’t self-conscious about working out anymore, was happy to strip off his shirt and take his turn in the ring for some practice fights. And it was nice to see the girls who always hung around the place noticing him, after all those years of passing unnoticed, of hiding in the corner with his books, people dismissing him as “Dean’s nerd brother,” they were finally seeing _him_ , and not just seeing him, but admiring him and talking about him.

One morning, when Dean stepped up behind him to get to the sink, he noticed that he was actually taller than Dean, bigger than his big brother. Dean regarded them both soberly in the mirror as Sam grinned euphorically.

“Man, no fuckin’ way,” said Dean with disbelief, “shit, you’re taller than me.” He looked Sam over, eyes lingering as they ran over his naked torso, a glint of wonder and admiration in his expression that Sam had always craved, the kind of admiration that wasn’t love or concern or fondness or affection, but pure, hard lust, like the sensation that buzzed over him when he watched Dean work out.

“Motherfucker, Sam, so fuckin’ hot.”

Sam growled and spun them around, slamming Dean up against the sink with his new-found muscles, bending his head and latching onto Dean’s tongue, sucking it into his mouth as they kissed desperately, that barely restrained need that buzzed under Sam’s skin rising up, forcing him to this: riding Dean down to the ground, pouncing on him, swallowing his cock in one huge mouthful. He felt Dean writhe and moan beneath him, his hands tangled in Sam’s hair, meaningless words and phrases falling from his lips. He came with a cry and Sam swallowed it all down, choking and spluttering as he raised his head, passing the back of his hand over his mouth, his brother’s come smeared over his lips.

“Jesus Christ,” groaned Dean. “Man, you tryin’ to kill me?”

Sam smiled and leaned down, licked into Dean’s mouth, taking him in another bruising kiss, “Now you taste like me,” he murmured. Dean smiled lazily and made a move to get up. Sam put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down, shaking his head and smirking, “Nuh-uh, not yet, big brother. First I wanna come all over your pretty face, all over your gorgeous body, wanna cover you in my jizz. You down with that?” He hiked up his eyebrows, watching Dean’s Adam Apple as it bobbed up and down, swallowing convulsively, red flush rising up his chest.

“I'm down with that,” Dean whispered.

“Good boy,” said Sam.

 

 

Sam had often wondered about him and Dean, tried to research, to understand just what exactly had gone wrong in their genetic make-up, in their brains, in their upbringing to make them what they were to each other. He couldn’t honestly remember a time in his life when he didn’t want Dean, when he didn’t desire him. His first orgasms, the first time he’d gotten hard, he’d been thinking of his big brother, Dean taught him how to jerk off, Dean was there the first time he _did_ jerk off. And now, at the age of seventeen, Dean was still the only person he’d ever kissed, the only person he thought about when he got hard.

He’d read lots of psychology books over the years, had taken college courses in Abnormal Psychology, had even studied cases of sibling incest, had read every fictional book or seen every movie he could get his hands on that dealt with the subject, but none of them explained him and Dean. The love he felt for Dean was easy to explain: Dean had always been there for him, his protector, his parent, the one, the only constant in his entire life, everything that was good in his life, all the love and affection and security that most kids got from two parents, friends and family members, he got from his brother, so of course he loved Dean. But it didn’t explain the sexual attraction, the desire that burned beneath his skin when he looked at Dean, when he watched him, and it definitely didn’t explain why Dean reciprocated, why Dean felt that way towards him.

He’d never been attracted to girls and had only occasionally felt any attraction towards other guys, and then only when there was something about them - a certain mannerism, way of speaking, green eyes or coffee-colored freckles - just a small something that recalled his brother. Dean had filled up every single space in his heart, his brain, his body, his _soul_ until there was no room for anything else, or anyone else.

He knew that this was weird, that this was wrong, that if people knew about him and Dean and the reality of their relationship they’d think that Dean had been abusing him for all those years, using him for his own perverted pleasure. Already, many of the people who’d known them: other kids in the homes, at Riverside Court, Miss Jeanette, Dean’s crew, found their relationship uncomfortable and unsettling, not that any of them ever dared say anything out loud, but Sam knew that they spoke about it.

Occasionally, Dean would freak out, would talk about how people saw him as an abuser, a pedophile, but it was ludicrous to Sam, Dean had never abused him, had never forced him, the mere idea was totally absurd. He was the one who usually instigated anything between them, who rolled over in the middle of the night and crowded up against Dean, burrowing into him and reaching greedily for his cock, his mouth hungry on Dean’s skin. After Dean’s freak-outs, he’d start dating someone, usually one of the girls from Little Stevie’s clubs, one of the dancers, take them out for a couple of nights – more for show than anything else – sometimes he’d fuck them, always telling Sam about it afterwards as if he was making a confession.

Sometimes he wondered if things would’ve been different if their father had lived. He didn’t remember much about Dad, and got the impression when Dean did talk about him that their life had been weird, even then, he could remember that they’d moved around a lot, lived in motel rooms and rental places instead of a proper house and Dad hadn’t had a proper job like normal dads. When Sam thought about it, he imagined that their dad had been something like a stickup guy, some sort of criminal, someone who operated outside the law, after all, they’d been always moving around and he’d been killed by a police officer. Dean never spoke about that – about what Dad used to do to for a living – he just got all quiet and sad and shook his head, saying, “That shit don’t matter no more, Sam. What we got now – you and me – that’s all that matters.”

So, perhaps, even if Dad hadn’t died, things would’ve still been the same, he and Dean would still love each other the way they do, and that thought, it was comforting. He couldn’t imagine a life where Dean wasn’t everything to him, where he wasn’t everything to Dean; it just was, he thought, they just were.

 

*************************

 

Sam went on a date for the first time when he was seventeen. One of the students in his Macroeconomics study group, a kid called Joseph, asked him out after class one day. He was four years older than Sam, in his final year of college, while Sam was still technically not yet college age, but then Sam was a genius and was already in his final year of undergraduate study with a place at Law School waiting for him when he graduated.

“I’m, uh, I’m goin’ out tomorrow night,” he told Dean over dinner.

“Yeah? For real? Where?” asked Dean through a mouthful of mac and cheese.

“On a date,” he said slowly, bracing himself for Dean’s reaction.

Dean looked up at him and grinned, “Sammy, man, you sly dog. Who the lucky chick? One of those hot librarian types, yo? With glasses and a fuckin’ bun in her hair.”

“Uh, no, it’s a guy, Dean. His name’s Joseph.”

Dean’s smile wavered slightly, getting fixed and distrustful as he looked at Sam. “Huh. A guy?”

“Yeah, Dean, a guy. Why you lookin’ at me like that?”

Dean shrugged, not meeting Sam’s eye, “Shit, man, jus’ didn’t know you swung that way is all.”

“What?” Sam snorted, “All those times I sucked your cock or you got me off don’t count none?”

Dean looked up at him, eyes widening in confusion, “Well, no, they don’t count. You and me – it, uh,” he hesitated, blushed, “it’s different.”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded slowly, hint of amusement at the corner of his mouth. “A-ight, Dean, you believe what you want. I know what gets me hot.”

Dean didn’t say anything for the rest of the meal, leaving the table in silence to go upstairs and get changed while Sam did the dishes.

“You need me to drive you?” he asked, not looking at Sam as he pulled on his jacket.

“Naw, man, I got my own ride, you know that,” he answered.

Dean nodded and left, still without looking at him.

 

He felt weird as he got out his own car the following night – one of the SUV’s that had previously belonged to Little Stevie. He drove downtown to the Inner Harbor, the restaurant Joseph had chosen, with an uncomfortable weight in his belly, feeling like he was making some huge mistake.

The restaurant was nothing like he was used to, very civilized and expensive, with waiters who called them gentlemen, serving the sort of food that had never made it to Riverside Court. Joseph asked him lots of questions, about his childhood, about his family, about why he had a burnt patch on the side of his head, and he listened closely to every word, eyes wide and incredulous as Sam told him about Riverside Court, about life in their neighborhood.

“Dude, it’s just – I never had any idea,” he said admiringly, “but, seriously, you can’t tell, without you telling me, it’s not immediately obvious that that’s what you come from.”

Sam didn’t know whether to feel flattered or offended by the remark. The guy was trying to be complimentary, but there was so much of him that was rooted in the Westside, and Dean – Dean _was_ the Westside, as Little Stevie’s number two, he was practically running it now, and Sam could never deny or hide that part of himself, though he _did_ hide it, changing his voice, his accent everyday as soon as he drove past Charles Street.

“So, is it – is it just like the stories you read in the newspapers? Is it dangerous living there?”

Sam shrugged, thinking about all the times Dean had come home with blood on his clothes, the gun Dean always carried tucked into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, the rolls of dirty greasy bills and pounds of product that passed through Little Stevie’s backroom under his own watchful eye. A couple of weeks ago, he and Dean had attended the funeral of Doobie, a kid who’d driven for Dean, one of Dean’s crew. Dean had been there when he’d been killed, had come home that night with blood under his nails, his eyes blank and red as he finished off the fifth of Beam at the kitchen table. A shoot-out over on 8th, he’d told Sam eventually, he’d been lucky, had gotten two of their guys, but Doobie’s luck had run out.

“Stupid-ass motherfucker never fuckin’ knew when to duck, always hadta wear that dumb fuckin’ hat, I done told him, man, ya gonna ‘tract attention, and he did, man, he did… Damnit, Sam, he, like, seventeen years old, he's your age. I jus’ kept thinkin’, as he was bleedin’ out, fuckin’ blood all over my hands, kept thinkin’ you the same age as Sammy, you dumb motherfucker… Shit, man.”

He dropped his head into his hands and Sam leaned in, resting his cheek against the bow of Dean’s shoulder blades, curling one arm around Dean’s neck, pulling him in close.

“That ain’t never gonna be me, Dean,” he whispered, “cause me and you, we’re gonna get outta this place, we’re gonna make good, get one of those huge-ass apartments downtown, one of them fuckin’ loft apartments they’re advertisin’, down by the fuckin’ harbor. That’ll be us, man. Me and you.”

Dean didn’t say anything, his breath hitching as he twisted in Sam’s embrace, pulling him in painfully tight, pressing their mouths together, taking Sam’s in a brutal kiss. They fucked right there, on the kitchen floor, the greasy, dirty kitchen floor, Dean pounding into him, hard and fast and ruthless, the two of them on their knees in the dirt and dust, Dean’s hand on his cock.

Afterwards, he slumped back against Dean, asshole throbbing, dick chafing from Dean’s rough fingers. He felt the words as Dean spoke, whispering them into his skin, “Never leave me, promise me, that ain’t never gonna be you.”

“Never,” he said, voice so true and sure, turning to take in his brother’s face, the too-close blur of his features, “never, Dean. Me and you, always.”

They went to Doobie’s funeral, two of only three white guys there, and the other had been one of Doobie’s old middle school teachers. He stood by Dean’s side in their suits; the two of them flanked by Dean’s other crew members. Little Stevie on the front row, two chairs to take his weight, Doobie’s mama beside him, wailing into her hands, her cries getting wild and pitiful when they lowered the coffin into the grave.

He turned back to Joseph, who was watching him with blatant interest, eyes wide. Joseph would never get all that, would just write Dean off as a criminal, a murderer, a guy who sent teenage boys to their deaths, but that was the Game, and people like Joseph didn’t get that if you lived in their world, you played the Game or you curled up and died.

“It’s like being two different people,” he said slowly, “at home, it’s different, I talk differently and act differently – I pretty much have to, you know, and out here,” he shrugged, raising his hand to take in his surroundings, “at school, whatever, I’m someone else.”

“Like Bruce Wayne and Batman?”

Sam smiled at him, “Well, not that cool, and I don’t have a freaky obsession with bats, but if I started talking in school like I do at home, well, I wouldn’t ever have passed the fucking admissions, whatever my test scores were. But whatever, honestly, if you talk right, you act right, say the right shit, then that’s all it takes.”

“Well, I think, you’re just – you’re incredible, you know,” the guy said, blushing slightly, “you’re like an inspiration, dude. And you know, you’re so fuckin’ smart, I couldn’t believe it when you said you were only seventeen.”

They went for a walk afterwards, Sam taking surreptitious glances at the guy’s profile in the white light, trying to figure out if what he was feeling was genuine attraction or if it was just the effect of the evening – his first real date – good food and wine, God, he'd barely drunk wine before, and real conversation with someone who wasn’t Dean. He’d had so few friends over the years, always been too smart and too white for the kids at Riverside Court and at his old high school, he’d never fitted in liked Dean had managed to do. And then afterwards, at Chilcott, he still hadn’t fitted in, the whole place so alien to him, surrounded and intimidated by all these super-smart kids with money that didn’t come from organized crime.

“Hey,” Joseph said suddenly. Sam stopped and looked at him, saw him draw closer, raising his hand to Sam’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss. Sam closed his eyes and kissed him back. It was hard to rate whether it was good or not, different was the only word Sam could think of, different because it wasn’t how Dean kissed and he’d only ever kissed Dean before, was practically a virgin.

He was about to kiss Joseph again when he felt the guy being wrenched away from him. He snapped his eyes open just in time to see Dean dragging Joseph away and flooring him with one solid left hook to the jaw.

For a second, Sam was frozen in shock, then abruptly, he came back to life, glanced around him wildly: Dean’s crew – J-Boy, Beastie, Wallace, Grimes and Cracker were ringed around them, watching and cheering on Dean as he pounced on Joseph’s prostrate body, straddling him, hands locking around his throat, eyes wild, spittle flying from his lips as he screamed: “You get yo’ motherfuckin’ faggoty hands offa my brother, you dirty-ass cocksucker! You don’t getta touch him! Fuckin’ nobody get to touch him!”

Sam watched, frozen to the spot, chest rising and falling with panted breaths, eyes locked on the expression on his brother’s face, the unrestrained violence and ferocity Dean usually managed to hide from him. He felt the heat swell up in his gut, tight and hard and wanting, wanting Dean so much, this crazy, deranged version of his brother who was fucking _killing_ this guy, who would seriously put him in the fucking ground just because – because he’d seen him kissing his little brother.

He could feel his cock now, hard as fucking steel in his boxers, pressing against the seam of his best jeans as Dean took a swing, prize-winning fist connecting wetly with Joseph’s nose and lips, blood smeared on Dean’s knuckles. J-Boy finally made a move, pulled on Dean’s arm, helping him to his feet as Dean staggered, chest heaving as his eyes met Sam’s, black and burning into Sam’s skull. Sam watched, gulping, still speechless as Dean fumbled in his jacket, pulled out a wad of bills, letting them scatter to the ground around Joseph’s body.

Dean gasped for breath, snarled out: “Deal with this! Leave him outside the fuckin’ ER; I don’t wanna hear nothin’ about it. Y’all feel me?”

His guys nodded, muttering cursory, “Yes boss.”

Dean nodded, barked out: “Sam! We leavin’!”

They walked to where Sam had left his car, Dean leaning over to snatch the keys from Sam’s hand.

“I’m drivin’,” he snapped out, and Sam swallowed, still not daring to speak. They got inside the car and Dean heaved out another long breath, clenched his fingers around the wheel. Slowly he turned, looked at Sam in the face, “Sorry, ‘bout your boy.”

“He ain’t my boy,” said Sam quietly. “Fuck, Dean, you know that.”

Dean’s mouth twisted up, “Guess I really screwed up.”

“You didn’t kill him, didja?”

“Hell, no, I ain’t that fuckin’ stupid.” He sighed heavily, “I just – fuck, man, seein’ you with that faggot, it just – it just broke me, yo. I can’t deal with seein’ you with some other dude. You’re mine, Sammy.”

“I feel you,” said Sam quietly, “when you go out, fuck those girls, it makes me so mad, Dean, like; I can’t fuckin’ bear it, neither. You get that now, right?”

Dean gave him an uncomfortable smile, “Yeah. I’m sorry. Never really thought ‘bout that, ‘bout you bein’ jealous.”

Sam took a breath then shifted along the bench seat, coming closer to Dean, he put out one hand, resting it gently on Dean’s cheek, he turned his face until they were looking at each other. “Let’s make a deal. No one else, okay? No-one else. Just you and me.”

Dean nodded, relief flooding his eyes, “Okay, okay, yeah, Sam, yeah.”

“Good,” he said with a smile, “now kiss me.”

 

 

****************************

 

 

When Sam was twenty, two important things happened to him: he graduated from Law School, and he and Dean killed Little Stevie.

They planned it all beforehand. It was the last step, they had the money, and Dean had the better crew – smarter guys who were all completely loyal to him, because afterwards, after they finished Little Stevie, there’d be fallout. There was always fallout when the king fell, but they would win, because they were smarter and they had more money.

Sam was in the backroom at the yard, the same regular Friday night appointment he’d had for six years. He counted the money as he’d always done, making mental calculations about where he was going to put it, which account, which investments they could move around this time. Little Stevie and Stretch sat across from him, watching carefully, eyes greedy as they took in the piles of dirty, crumpled green strewn across the desk, laptop between them as Sam checked their portfolio, trying to avoid looking at the clock, every nerve and muscle tense and expectant.

At 12am exactly, just as they’d planned, Dean came in.

Little Stevie looked up in surprise, “Dean, what you doin’ here? Everything okay, yo?”

Dean’s expression was blank, nothing showing in his face.

He turned to Stretch, said, “You can stay or you can go, but my advice is that you get the fuck outta here.”

Stretch looked at Dean, then turned his eyes onto Sam, Sam carefully kept his face blank, fingers still methodically counting out the stack of bills in front of him. Silently, he felt Stretch push out his chair, get to his feet, tread heavy as he left the room, door closing ominously behind him.

“Deano? What the fuck goin’ on? What you at, man?” asked Little Stevie.

“It time,” Dean said, no emotion in his voice, his face that same blank mask.

Little Stevie’s expression shifted, confusion etching into the fleshy rolls. “Deano? Sammy? What the fuck?”

There was no suspicion in his gaze, just bewilderment, an almost child-like bewilderment, Sam thought. Little Stevie trusted them, trusted Dean ever since he was sixteen years old, trusted Sam to make him more money than he deserved, and Sam had done that and now, it was their turn.

“You gotta answer,” said Dean flatly. “You gotta answer fo’ what you done to me.”

“I… no! What?” he protested. “Dean, no, I gave you everything, boy. I favored you ‘bove all others, you a white-boy and it ain’t matter none, not to me, you know that. You were like a son to me. You were the one, Dean.” He licked his lips, voice getting high and wheezy. “You know that.”

Dean shook his head, his expression hard, face unreadable and cold.

“A son?” he spat, “I was the kid who sucked your old, wrinkled cock, let you fuckin’ _touch_ me. Is that the kinda shit a son do fo’ his daddy?”

Sam flinched, his whole body freezing up, he glanced up wildly, eyes searching for Dean, wanting, _needing_ to see the denial in his brother’s eyes, the lie.

“No,” he whispered, “that ain’t true. Dean? Tell me that ain’t true.”

Dean’s face folded up, lips trembling and eyes going watery as they met Sam’s, “I’m sorry, Sammy. It true,” he whispered.

Sam nodded, his insides twisting up, a cold, hard burn of something rising up his gut, true and blazing and terrifying. He got to his feet slowly, chair clattering, falling to the floor behind him. He slid out his gun from his waistband, rounded the table, his eyes locked on the top of Little Stevie’s head, on the intricate weave of his dreadlocks. He pressed the muzzle up against the size of his face.

“You’re a dead man,” he said calmly. “And you’re gonna pay. I’m gonna hurt you so fuckin’ much.”

He stared down at this guy, the rage burning inside him, cold and huge, bile at the back of his throat, at this guy – this monster – that had done that to his brother, that had touched his brother. He felt an inhuman wave of calm come over him, cold-blooded and merciless, he was gonna make him hurt: never mind his gun, that was too fucking quick, he needed to _hurt_ him, put his hands around his neck, his own big hands that had touched Dean’s body so many times, that had skated over Dean’s skin, caressed him and loved every fucking inch of him, and this – this enormous, obese monster – had been there too, had touched Dean, had stained him. _His_ Dean, his brother. No one… no one got to touch Dean.

“You’re a dead man,” he repeated, his voice breaking, cracking at the words, emotion hissing through the consonants. “You gonna hurt. No one touches him, no one, ‘cept me.”

He could feel the guy trembling through the muzzle of his gun, see his useless fat fingers flexing on the table, and he suddenly remembered that kid – Ryan – all those years ago, he and Dean together, carving his initials into his ass.

“Sam,” Dean said quietly, “we gotta stick to the plan, remember the plan.”

“Fuck the plan!” he snarled. “He’s gonna pay, Dean, he’s gonna hurt for what he did to you – he’s gonna feel pain! Let me hurt him.”

“Sammy!” Dean said, and this time it was an order, he met Sam’s eyes, “No, we do this my way. We do it together.”

“Dean,” pleaded Little Stevie, “Anything, yo’ can have anything you want. The money? The business, take it all. It’s yours, Dean. All yours.”

“You used me,” said Dean quietly, “you abused me.”

“I love you!” cried out Little Stevie, and he was crying now, fat, ugly tears rolling down his fat, ugly face, shaking, quivering mountains of flesh. “I would never hurt you, Dean, I love you.”

Dean’s mouth twisted up; he looked sickened, his entire face scrunching up and crumpling as the fat man kept blubbering, pleading and begging, that thin, wheezing voice, over and over again. Sam stared at his brother, lowered his gun and in one, two steps, he was beside Dean, raising his hands to cradle his brother’s face, staring directly into his eyes, his beloved, familiar face.

“Dean, baby, it’s okay. Together, okay? You and me.”

Dean nodded, eyelashes fluttering, eyes seeking Sam’s, mouths coming together, a quick, hard kiss. Sam pressed their foreheads together, sharing breaths.

“You ready?” he whispered.

He felt Dean’s nod, heard his quiet, “Yeah,” as they pulled apart.

Dean’s eyes were red, watery and locked on him. Sam smiled at him, raised his gun, Dean’s arm was around him, right hand over Sam’s own, fingers entwined as they held the gun in place, Sam’s favorite pearl-handled Colt.

They pulled the trigger together.

 

 

*******************************

 

_Six years later…_

_July, 17, 2009_

 

Dean was lying on their enormous leather corner suite when Sam finally got back from the office, taking up as much room as he possibly could, an elegant, come-hither sprawl in his rumpled designer suit, barefoot, with open collar and no tie, shirt tails untucked.

“Hey,” Sam called out as he spotted him, tossing his briefcase aside.

Dean looked up and grunted, watching him as he dropped to the end of the couch. He pulled Dean’s bare feet into his lap and began to massage them, pressing his fingers hard into the arches of Dean’s soles. Dean groaned deliciously, sinking back into the soft leather, his eyes going heavy-lidded and lashes fluttering.

“Hmm, don’t stop,” he murmured.

Sam smiled to himself, bowing his head and kissing the tops of Dean’s feet, trailing kisses along the ridge of bone, over the soft, golden hairs.

“I think it went well today, dontcha think?” he asked. “You know, I reckon, if things go our way, we could clear four million on just that Towers Development. We got the fuckin’ administration completely tied into us, at our fuckin’ mercy.”

He smiled to himself and dragged his tongue over the delicate ankle bones, nosing under the hems of Dean’s dress pants.

Dean groaned out again and shifted, “Shut up ‘bout the fuckin’ business, man, jus’ keep doin’ that.”

Sam huffed out a laugh and dropped Dean’s foot to his lap, moving to tug off his suit jacket.

Dean opened his eyes and looked at him, propping himself up on one elbow, reaching to flick open the buttons on Sam’s Armani dress pants, fingers fumbling to free Sam’s erection until it was poking through his fly, blood-red, huge and really kinda obscene. Dean lifted his gaze to Sam’s face, licking his lips in that deliberate predatory way that had Sam swallowing tightly, breath catching in his throat.

“Totally fuckin’ knew all that talkin’ ‘bout money would turn you on,” Dean muttered, smirk playing across his mouth. “Such a kinky fucker, aintcha, Sammy?”

“You turn me on more,” Sam growled.

Dean’s smile widened, provocative and triumphant and pure evil, he bowed his head and spat into his hand, a little pool of foamy saliva in the creases of his palm. He glanced up again, catching Sam’s eyes once more, his own eyes darker, green almost disappeared, mouth a cool, plush smirk, he leaned in and dragged his newly slick fingers over the head of Sam’s cock.

Sam gasped out loud and let his head fall back, feeling Dean struggle into a sitting position, both of them fumbling to get closer, Dean’s palm still dragging, sticky and wet, up and down Sam’s shaft. He wrapped one arm around Dean, pulling him in closer, his big hand on the back of his brother’s neck, fingers sliding under his open collar, over the short hairs on the nape of his neck. He lowered his face until their mouths met and they started to kiss. He could feel Dean’s hand wrapping around his silk tie, pulling him closer, mouth not leaving Sam’s as they kissed and kissed, other hand getting reckless and loose on Sam’s cock as it continued its fast tugs up and down. He paused and flicked his thumb deftly over the slit and Sam shuddered, eyes snapping open, seeing his brother’s face so close, a fish-eyed lens view of flushed, pink skin and wet, soft lips.

“Wanna fuck you,” he murmured. “C’mon, Dean, baby, we got time.”

Dean drew back far enough so he could see Sam clearly, “Always got time for that.” He glanced down, gave Sam’s cock a soft, almost gentle squeeze, completely at odds with the filthy leer on his face.

Sam pulled away, tucking his cock back into his pants as he climbed off the couch to stand on the white, fur rug in the middle of the room. He wanted to take his time, a slowed-down, long-perfected strip tease, just the way Dean liked it. Dean sprawled back on the couch, shirt half-unbuttoned, hand rubbing lazily over the thick outline of his cock pressing against the tight cut of his dress pants in a way that was seriously indecent, his eyes running all over Sam’s body in hungry anticipation, his tongue slicking over his lips as he watched. He gave Dean a predatory smile and unknotted his tie all the way, material slipping through his fingers, fluttering to the floor in a purple silk trail; next, he flicked the buttons on his white dress shirt, sliding it smoothly off his broad shoulders and ultra-toned arms.

His gaze lingered over Dean, over the soft beads of sweat at his hairline, over his fingers gripping harder around his erection. He turned, bent to retrieve the all-purpose remote control lying on the coffee table and pressed a button. All around them, the blinds on the penthouse apartment’s full-length windows started to roll upwards, revealing the lit-up city sprawled out twenty floors beneath them.

“Bit of an atmosphere, huh, man? Nice,” Dean commented, “now quit teasin’ and get naked already.”

Sam huffed out an amused, smug sound and unbuckled his leather Gucci belt, slipping it out of the belt loops and letting it fall in an elegant coil to the floor. His pants were next, sliding down his long legs with a soft swoosh of expensive fabric to pool around his ankles, he stepped out of them, naked save for tight boxer briefs which were only serving to emphasize his prominent erection.

He heard Dean’s growl behind him as he turned his back to his brother and pushed down his boxers, as if Dean was the camera and he was the stripper putting on a show, holding back for the big reveal. Instead of turning around, giving Dean the big full frontal, he stalked away from him, away from the rug and the couch and his appreciative audience, and towards the full-length windows. It was too dark to see outside properly, into the dark grey sky and glittering stars, the lights in the apartment making it so he could only see his own reflection – his own naked body walking towards himself, the designer furniture and hardwood floors laid out behind him. He pressed his forehead to the cold glass to see outside, gaze swooping over the yellow-orange car headlights inching down the traffic-filled streets, the lit-up billboards and high-rise office blocks with every floor illuminated, the picture like a Budweiser advert.

He turned around to see Dean approaching him, in his full naked glory, hard, red cock, bobbing obscenely in front of him as he strolled towards Sam, that smooth rolling walk of his, his bow legs and strong, muscled thighs. He wetted his lips in appreciation and reached out to grab Dean’s wrist, pulling him close, spinning them around until he had Dean flush against him, his chest to Dean’s back, his palm over Dean’s rapidly beating heart, the two of them facing outside. He lowered his chin to Dean’s shoulder, staring over Dean and out the window, into the city of Baltimore below.

Dean lowered one hand, running it lovingly down Sam’s side, then pulling back to slap his ass, hard, the sound ringing out absurdly loud in the quiet apartment.

Sam’s eyebrows shot up in shock and Dean laughed, “Dude, your face!”

They fucked in front of the windows, Sam mesmerized by the sight of his big, red cock sliding into his brother’s tiny asshole. Dean was splayed across his lap, firm, strong thighs wrapped around Sam’s hips, hands braced on Sam’s shoulders, head thrust back, his body a gorgeous, golden curve, sweat shining like oil on his sculpted chest and back.

He watched Dean work himself up and down on his cock in the reflection in the windows, watched and saw how Dean took charge, how Dean rode him, had him completely in every thrust up and down, owned him utterly, body and soul. In all his life, Sam had never been with anyone else, he’d only ever had sex with one person, they had been doing this their entire lives and Sam never felt more himself than when he was inside Dean or Dean was inside him.

“I’m gonna give it to you,” he whispered, “all of it, I want it for you, baby, love you so fuckin’ much, fuck, Dean, fuck…”

Dean came with a cry, his face buried into Sam’s shoulder, mouth wet on Sam’s neck. He tilted his head back, meeting Sam’s eyes, “You’re such a fuckin’ tease, Sammy, wantin’ to give the whole fuckin’ city an eyeful.”

“We’re gonna own all of it,” he said quietly. “Me and you, it’ll all be ours, Dean.”

“I thought most of it was already ours,” said Dean, and Sam could hear the amusement in his voice, could hear the smile on his face.

“No, not all of it. Not enough, not yet,” he murmured. He turned his face into Dean’s neck, breathed in his scent, burying his nose into that gorgeous hollow of Dean’s throat. Dean shuddered against him, ass muscles clenching around Sam’s still hard cock, he could feel it twitch as he held them both still, every shiver and quiver of Dean’s body around him. “We gotta take this city first, all of it, then the rest of the East Coast –“

“Then the world,” Dean finished with a soft smile.

Sam huffed out a smile in turn, nuzzling against Dean’s shoulder, “Yeah, Dean, then the world.”

 

 

THE END


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